Friday, April 22, is Earth Day and several airports and airlines will be marking the environment-focused day with special events.
Orlando International Airport is hosting an Earth Day celebration from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. on Friday in the Hyatt Atrium (Main Terminal, adjacent to the security checkpoint for gates 70-129).
On the agenda: games, Earth Day trivia sessions and educational exhibits.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is holding its Passenger Earth Day Celebration in the Domestic Terminal Atrium on Friday from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m.
Scheduled activities at ATL include live music, environmentally friendly gifts, coloring books and crafts for children, and a display of a 10-foot globe.
Also on Friday, Hawaiian Airlines will operate a special flight between Auckland and Honolulu to demonstrate a variety of ways the carrier is working to reduce fuel burn and carbon emissions.
The special Earth Day Flight will meet a set of seven environmental markers, or best practices, set out by the Asia and Pacific Initiative to Reduce Emissions (ASPIRE). The joint venture was created in 2008 with the goal of reducing the impact of aviation across Asia and the South Pacific.
In a statement describing the special fight, Hawaiian said it will use advanced air traffic management procedures from gate to gate and collaborate with air navigation service providers (ANSPs) to demonstrate all seven of ASPIRE’s best practices, which they list as “User Preferred Routes; Dynamic Airborne Reroute Procedures; 30/30 Reduced Oceanic Separation; Time-based Arrivals Management; Arrivals Optimization; Departures Optimization; and Surface Movement Optimization.”
The ASPIRE HA Flight 446 will be on an Airbus A330 and is scheduled to take off from Auckland International Airport at 12:15 a.m. on April 22 and arrive at Honolulu International Airport at 11:00 a.m. HST.
By using the ASPIRE procedures on this daily AKL-HNL route alone, Hawaiian Airlines estimates it will use 1% less fuel (approximately 1,000 pounds) per flight and reduce carbon emissions by 230 metric tons annually.
In Environmental Protection Agency “equivalencies,” notes Hawaiian, that’s like taking 48 cars off the road.
Harriet Baskas is a Seattle-based airports and aviation writer and USA TODAY Travel's "At the Airport" columnist. She occasionally contributes to Ben Mutzabaugh's Today in the Sky blog. Follow her at twitter.com/hbaskas.
